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Wednesday, 24 December 2014

How to do a roast bird, our stylee.....

So here we go, Christmas Eve and all is ready for tomorrow. We've had a lovely quiet day here, listening to Christmas CDs and making & enjoying the place look nice. It is always lovely and quiet here on December 24th, as that is when most other people here celebrate Christmas. All shops are closed from lunchtime, there is hardly any traffic and apart from some birds tweeting you can't hear anything in the serene quietness around. Lovely! But on to the main feature tomorrow, the roast:

for those of you who have not done one before, and have purchased a frozen bird, particularly a turkey: defrost tonight!!!!! Do not do what the group of students I celebrated with in my first year did and wait until the afternoon before the dinner to discover that a turkey-sized bit of poultry will not defrost in 3-4 hours, even if placed in warm water.

here is the slightly gross bit: rinse your bird, inside the cavity and out, and dab dry with paper towels

tie the legs together, so they are close to the bird, in order to stop them overcooking

place your bird on a roasting grille that holds it above the juices in the roasting pan, so the bottom has a chance to get crunchy

heat oven up to 200 deg Celsius

cook the bird for 20 minutes and then turn down to 180 deg Celsius, leaving roast in for 20 minutes for every pound of bird; pour bird-own-juice from roasting tin onto bird several times during this period

while the bird is in the oven, chop vegetables into big chunks, or, in the case of small to medium potatoes, leave whole; you can use potatoes, pumpkin, sweet potato, turnips, beet, parsnip... all kinds of root vegetables for this.